FEATURED Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 3D

Step back into the shoes of rogue agent Sam Fisher and go deep behind enemy lines and infiltrate a terrorist plot.

Gameplay, Cinematic, Maps, HUD, Menus, Loading screens, and more are projected in the stereoscopic 3D of the 3DS.

New button mapping with the Slide Pad and Touch Pad gives the player seamless control to equip weapons and gadgets for more effective mission executions.

Protagonist Sam Fisher is equipped with enhanced weapons and better gadgets to infiltrate the enemy: new fusion goggles, OCP electronic disabling device, wall mine, more add-ons for the SC-20K rifle and more.

Lock picking is enhanced by utilizing the new Slide Pad to mimic the realism of lock picking. Hacking has also evolved from numeric codes to solving interactive 3D puzzles.

Coming exclusively to the Nintendo 3DS, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 3D is the highly anticipated hand held game in the multimillion-selling Splinter Cell series and one of the most critically acclaimed franchises of all time. Sam Fisher is sent behind enemy lines in the Korean Peninsula to prevent WWIII, by investigating the responsible party that sunk the USS Clarence E Walsh, U.S.’s most advanced cruiser. Through his investigation, Sam learns that the key parties who are planning to use the Masse Kernels to launch WWIII are war comrade Douglas Shetland, Displace International, and Admiral Otomo, the Third Echelon Information Self Defense Force (I-SDF) contact. The cutting edge hardware of the new Nintendo 3DS allows Splinter Cell fans to play in immersive 3D and ability to interact with the game like nothing before.

Tom Clancy Splinter Cell 3D is a handheld Stealth-Action game coming exclusively to the Nintendo 3DS.* One of the most highly anticipated handheld games of 2011 and timed to release with the new Nintendo 3DS handheld platform, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 3D reveals a whole new dimension to the iconic series protagonist, Sam Fisher, as well as the multimillion-selling Splinter Cell series through the advanced stereoscopic 3D functionality of the 3DS. Features include: sharp 3DS graphics in all areas of the game, new button mapping utilizing the Slide and Touch pad, enhanced weapons and improved puzzle-solving abilities.

Synopsis

Sam Fisher is sent behind enemy lines in the Korean Peninsula to prevent WWIII, by investigating the responsible party that sunk the USS Clarence E Walsh, the United States’ most advanced cruiser. Through his investigation, Sam learns that the key parties who are planning to use the Masse Kernels to launch WWIII are war comrade Douglas Shetland, Displace International, and Admiral Otomo, the Third Echelon Information Self Defense Force (I-SDF) contact. The cutting edge hardware of the new Nintendo 3DS allows Splinter Cell fans to play in immersive 3D and ability to interact with the game like nothing before.

Discover a new handheld dimension to Sam Fisher and the whole Splinter Cell series in Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 3D. View larger.

Nintendo 3DS

Nintendo 3DS is a groundbreaking hardware release that brings 3D gaming to the handheld market for the first time. The fourth major release in the DS product line, the Nintendo 3DS utilizes 3D Slider functionality and an improved top LCD display to present a glasses-free 3D effect in compatible games, while giving players the option to moderate the effect as they see fit. Taken together with additional features including full analog control in 3D game environments, motion and gyro sensors that transfer the movements of the handheld into the game, 3D camera functionality, an adjustable stylus and full backwards compatibility and you have not only a must-have system, but a revolution in handheld gaming.

3 thoughts on “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 3D”

To be clear on how I approached this iteration of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory–I came at it from the perspective of it being a console game paired down to fit on a handheld. I understood it was a launch window game for a new system and that since even the 3DS itself has limited connectivity at this time, it is not unrealistic for a game to have the same. I also compared it to the last SC game I played on a handheld, SC: Essentials and, well, you can’t compare the two so I won’t. Essentials was (and is) utter garbage and Splinter Cell 3D is an acceptable bare-bones conversion of one of the best Splinter Cell games from the previous console generation.

I’m going to not focus on what this game doesn’t have. Go read Metacritic if you are looking for people complaining about the lack of multiplayer features. I’m going to focus on the game. This is old school Splinter Cell stealth-action game play. This is not anything like SC: Conviction so if you are looking for an action game with minimal stealth elements you may want to pass on this port. The only way to make it through these levels unscathed is by being patient and waiting for your opportunity to take down a guard silently. You can be spotted by a guard and take him down while hitting another guard directly after and still live but you won’t survive multiple encounters of that scenario and if there are more than three guards present it won’t be easy at all…nearly impossible. Silent but deadly is key. Also, there are no violent interrogations like the infamous bathroom scene in the opening moments of Conviction. This is the old tried and true choke-hold then dispatch technique from the previous generation’s games.

The graphics are okay for this game. You have to be patient and find the perfect 3D effect setting, but I found the 3D effects nice. To make the game enjoyable I have the effects level at a minimum for 3D. In some instances I found myself turning it off completely. My eyes don’t handle (eye strain) the 3D effects at max on any of the 3DS games (I usually have the 3D setting at the mid-point), but this game requires me to have it as low as possible without actually being completely off. There is some noted screen tearing and clipping, but no game ending glitches were found on my play-through yesterday.

The controls take some adjusting to get the hang of and fighting the camera is never fun. In this game you use the A/B/C/Y buttons to move the camera and the control nub to move Sam around. The D pad jumps, crouches/stands, reloads the weapon and makes you move against the wall. You switch weapons, ammo types and do contextual actions (open doors, pick locks..etc) through the touch pad. It seems like with the camera it is always zoomed in on Sam’s back. I was constantly moving it to get a better view of what was in front of Sam. During the opening stages you are running in caves and it was very frustrating. Once you get out of that level it opened up and became easier to move around and see what was going on but the minute you get in hallways or rooms it becomes frustrating.

Sound is limited, but what is there is clear and easy to understand. It’s a handheld game…the sound effects are about what you expect. I don’t have a whole lot to add here.

In summary, it is about the best Splinter Cell you can get on a handheld so if you want Sam Fisher in your pocket go ahead and buy it. Just be aware that compromises were made in porting and if you are expecting the full Chaos Theory game on the go you will not see it here. If you are on the fence go check out Metacritic for what others are saying. It’s not perfect by any means and can be frustrating, but if you want old school Splinter Cell stealth it doesn’t get much better than this unless you plan to wait for the Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Classic Trilogy HD release on PS3 in a few months. In the end, I have played a worse handheld version of Splinter Cell (Essentials, I am looking at YOU!) and this was much better, but it still appears that Ubisoft is not able to translate their stealth masterpiece to the hand-held like other companies have been able to do with their AAA franchises and by this I am mainly talking about Konami and the Metal Gear series.

If you’ve never played a Splinter Cell game, this is not the place to start. One of the major reasons it keeps me playing is because I’ve worked with Sam Fisher on many other missions, and I think he and the whole Third Echelon crew are great.

The game does play very well, apart from a few slowdowns when you’re rotating the camera more than 180 degrees. The 3D isn’t as deep as other games, but that’s likely because most of the game, being a stealth action title, is pretty dark, and when you put light objects closer to you than dark ones, you’re going to see ghosting. I have yet to see any ghosting with the 3D slider all the way up.

The 3D is a bit more conservative because of that fact, but it is noticeable and it is done well. If you played any of Resident Evil 3D, you probably noticed that when looking through a sniper scope, the crosshair duplicates itself and you aren’t sure of exactly where the bullet’s going. The crosshairs in SC3D move to the depth of your target, which demonstrates an excellent degree of foresight and consideration of actually integrating 3D instead of it being just a gimmick.

And it IS fun. Full voice acting really adds a lot of production value to a handheld game, and the voices and sound design are excellent. The fact that you use face buttons to move your camera and crosshair shouldn’t deter anyone from giving it a try, but if you’re not a Splinter Cell fan, you might want to wait until you can find it for 14.99. I can tell you with the utmost confidence that it is an experience worth at least that much for anyone who enjoys fun games.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 3D is quite a good game but I found a bug in it. What am I trying to prove? Here is this:

As a warning to you players, Splinter Cell 3D may have a glitch that is triggered whenever I try to decode a Rubik cube-like password on in-game computers, when one may choose to hack into it. When I tried to solve a password like that and if I fail at it which led to setting off the in-game alarm, then I have to go to the menu to restart from the checkpoint and try again as every typical player would. About two or three more tries later, the game freezes! Frustrated, I had to restart the entire Nintendo 3DS system, reload the game and go to the saved checkpoint with more time lost.

I’d give it all five stars if it weren’t for that freeze-up. Oh well, I’m letting people know just in case they may have the same problem as I do.